The Taste of a Cure
by Iuvenes
Summary: Truten with a twist.
1. Caving In

This fic is dedicated to my girl, Veronica, for being my first fan, and for countless hours of… inspirational… conversation.

**Summary:** Just another Truten fic . . . really.

**Disclaimer: **Saiyan Smut is a non-profit organization. All characters have been shamelessly stolen from their original creators.

**Warnings:** Angst. Slash. Redirect.

**CHAPTER ONE**

_Caving In_

I think I have a pretty serious inferiority complex.

So, this is where the psychoanalyst says, "Oh, that is interesting! Tell me about your mother." Right? I don't think it has anything to do with my mother.

Okay, well . . . maybe it has just a tiny bit to do with my mother. She's a bit of a legend around the world, you know. An air-headed genius, beautiful even in her fifties, married to a man with a perfect physique, a man who doesn't age, which _fortunately_ no one has discovered is due to the fact that he's an alien . . . heiress to what is undeniably the humblest multi-billion-dollar corporation in the world, headquartered not in a towering city building, but in a largish capsule domicile with a few labs and a couple of nice-ish rooms for meeting important and semi-important people.

Sometimes I think we're famous because of that supposed 'humility' – the media certainly makes a big deal about it – because no one really cares about great scientists or CEOs of multi-billion-dollar corporations, right? Not _that_ much. I feel pretty much like a pampered rich kid anyway. What's the big deal about living in a 100-room mansion? Who needs all that space?

Whatever. We're famous, for whatever reason. Maybe it was my mom's hot bod that first propelled the family into stardom – not that I look at her that way, you freak, but I know how to recognize these things in an objective sort of way – because as far as I can determine, no one outside the scientific community seemed to care much about my grandfather until mom was a teenager. If that's the truth, then I guess I just came along and fit the mold. Lucky me, right?

I couldn't tell you how many people want me, and I'm not really sure I want to know. I _can_ tell you that a disturbing majority of females that I meet are downright obvious about wanting me, ranging from undressing me with their eyes to giving me a phone number, or a handle for one of those online 'adult friend' things, or worse, trying to grab something. Women can be pretty shameless.

Men can be even more shameless, which I discover anew every time I venture out into the real world, admittedly as seldom as life allows. It can be a bit of a culture shock.

At my high school, guys tended to be more respectfully appreciative than shameless. There were a surprising number of appreciative guys, several times the statistical average. After all, me and Goten made it _fashionable_ to be gay.

***

Sometimes lately I think my whole life is just a really, really bad cliche. As if the entire thing was the product of the unbelievably twisted imagination of some pathetic, emo thirteen-year-old girl who learned about true love from a mommy who boozes herself into incoherency every night because daddy beats them. As if normal, happy and perfect relationships just don't exist, or aren't interesting enough to make life worthwhile.

It wasn't always that way. I used to be a whole person. I used to know who I was.

Now I just waste away my days thinking entirely too much. Trying to _diagnose_ myself. Worried that my troubles are like worms, eating me away from the inside. Maybe I will run into that stupid fucking emo girl one day, and she can tell me exactly what sort of mental illness she stuck me with, so I can be cured.

The price of the cure is not an issue, and neither is the taste. I will pay whatever it costs. I will drink it down, and keep it down until it starts working.

Maybe then I will know what Goten seems to think I should know already.

***

We were adventurous kids, and started playing around with sex when we were really little – not sure when except that it was way before Buu, before Goku came back – and by the time high school rolled around, we were fucking like rabbits, as often as we could get away with it (which was pretty often; the parental reins were loose on both ends, if a bit less so where Chichi was involved).

It took years to convince Goten that everything would be alright if we told people. From the time we started public school, we had always been trendsetters, and it was pretty hard for me to imagine a scenario where coming out would be a bad thing at school. I mean, what were they going to do? Beat us up?

And sure enough, not only did we pretty much eradicate the social stigma against gayness at our school, but there were a good number of kids who started 'experimenting' because it was what the cool people were doing. Not just that small and weird-ish group of kids that I'm sure every high school has . . . but people from every social circle. Thanks to our fans across the world, the phenomenon spread well beyond West City, and even now the global demographics seem to suggest that the effect might remain despite the loss of the much-beloved poster boys.

I would have been pretty worried about dad if he hadn't figured it out on his own. I can't tell you how grateful I am that I remained completely unaware of the prejudice against homosexuality until shortly before he found out, so I was spared years of angsting about it, though it was probably the worst few months of my life. And he was actually pretty cool about it, after scaring the shit out of me by even having a clue.

He didn't bring it up until after the first time me and Goten engaged in full-fledged butt-fucking – he recognized the smell even after I'd washed up in the lake (sans soap, alas), a skill that demi-Saiyans apparently lack – but he claimed, with his usual hateful, nose-in-the-air ,'if you think I am an idiot, I will gladly disabuse you of the notion' Glare of Death, that _of course_ he had known we were going that way for years, and he seemed to think it was all right and proper. _"You are a Saiyan prince, boy. You deserve a strong mate. There is no one else who is worthy."_

Which really just begs the proverbial question, doesn't it? You'd think he would have turned his nose up at mom – a human woman! – but he seems to like her alright. I mean, by his own philosophy, he should have . . .

***

. . . okay, so that thought makes me laugh uncontrollably, even though the thought has occurred to me many times before, with pretty much the same effect. But really, he should have gone after Goku years ago, right?

Well, to be fair, I know why he didn't. I mean, on top of the fact that I have no real reason to think my dad would swing that way, other than the fact that it didn't seem to bother him that I did. And even if he did swing that way, there's nothing to say that Goku would. Other than the fact that he was also apparently unfazed by Goten being gay (and it was Goku that managed to keep Chichi from freaking out about it, miraculously, though it took her a couple of months to be happy about it). I mean, they're both with _women_, and that is something that I have never even considered.

But anyway, the real reason why my dad would never go after Goku is almost certainly because his Saiyan instincts would make him the sexually submissive partner.

He's actually the one that explained that to me, when I asked him why it just didn't feel right unless I was 'dominant' during sex; we tried it the other way, but neither one of us could get off. Dad says it's because Saiyans are warriors, and our instincts are to follow strength in sex. Even in the rare cases where a female was stronger than her male mate, it still applied, but 'dominance' is simply more clearly defined when it comes to sex between men.

And honestly . . . there's just something about the image of my dad, on his hands and knees, getting his ass reamed by Goku, that's just . . . _wrong_. Very interesting, I have to admit, but still wrong. And not just because he's my dad, and I really try not to think about him like that. I mean, anyone who knows my dad would understand. That image is like . . . the _antithesis_ of my dad's life philosophy. Which, admittedly, seems to revolve around Goku a lot. But not like that?

Anyway . . . Goku figured it out on Goten's side too – apparently the same way, caught out by the pure Saiyan's uncanny sense of smell, and I hope that's true because I find it really weird to imagine our dads having a conversation about it! – and pretty soon all the family and such knew, and thus Goten's arguments for staying in the closet at school got a lot weaker.

So we came out our senior year, and then right after we graduated . . . _bam_. Goten left me.

For a _girl_.

***

Aside from a few other unpleasant consequences of that momentous event, the media noticed.

I'm expected to keep up with what they think about me, and usually it's halfway-entertaining bathroom reading. Of course they decided that we, like our impressionable schoolmates, had just been 'experimenting' all along. I didn't bother to correct them (I never do). The women used to leave me alone for the most part. Now they're all convinced they have a chance.

They don't. And not just because I'm gay (I definitely am), because really, none of the men have a chance either.

They're not Saiyans.

In fact, they're not anything like me at all. What would I do with a human guy? Seriously. I'd _break_ him. Well, I suppose I could be gentle – dad and Goku manage with our moms, after all – but what is the fun in that? Besides, strength is only a small part of it, and only really has to do with the sex. Sex isn't everything, right?

Goten is just my other half.

We were raised, despite the celebrity of my family, in a pretty exclusive little social bubble. A social bubble that's always in the midst of the most important things happening on the planet. It's like the rest of the world is ignorant, while we're the only ones that know the truth. We're the only ones that know the gods, of the planet, and of the universe. We're the ones the gods _depend on_ when the fucking universe is in danger!

Goten is in that with me. He's a part of it. None of those human guys are a part of it.

There are a few other guys in the bubble, but they're ridiculously easy to mark off the list . . .

Our dads are out, of course. My dad for obvious reasons, and Goku is kinda like a second dad to me. And married. To a woman. Gohan is apparently happily married, and therefore probably straight . . .

Incidentally, I actually considered seeing what I could do to change that after Goten left me, partly out of post-traumatic shock syndrome (really), and partly just to fulfill a secret fantasy of mine that I would never have _seriously_ considered as long as his little brother still loved me.

I was going to start slow on him, see if I could cry on his shoulder a little, feel him out for possibilities. But sadly, I realized pretty quick that Gohan still sees me as a little kid, and will probably always see me that way. He's out of my league, on top of being married. And probably straight.

That's it for the Saiyans. Nameks are asexual, not that I'm interested in green people.

The human guys . . . they're pretty strong for humans, I guess. But Krillin is out (thank Dende!) due to being straight and married, and Tien is even more antisocial than my dad (and he's got that freaky third eye!) and he's probably straight, since I heard he once had a thing for some crazy girl with MPD or something that could supposedly do some serious damage with automatic weapons. Interesting, that he likes that sort of thing. But he's still out, and on the whole I can't say I feel like I'm missing much.

Yamcha is still pining over my mother. I could see him being gay and just delusional because he's got this macho image thing going on, but whatever. He doesn't interest me, partly because he is just lame, but also because he is one of those people that feels the need to remind me every time I see him that he is a heterosexual, usually with some idiotic and even misogynistic line about girls, always delivered with the full expectation that I will empathize, even though he knows better. Speaks pretty strongly for him being in denial, but who wants to be with someone who's that stupid? Either he's straight, or he's fucking retarded. Or bisexual, but really . . . Yamcha just doesn't do it for me. And he's getting old.

That's it. There is no one else, unless I need to explain why a centuries-old fart and a pig and Goten's humongous grandfather aren't really options.

And I guess that other people have been brought into that bubble through marriage before . . . but not really. Chichi met Goku when he was a kid. She was a fighter, and her dad studied martial arts with Roshi. My mom met Goku before Chichi did, and she was onto the dragon balls before then (which is, incidentally, why she found him). The dragon balls are a huge part of what we are, our little social bubble. Videl just _happened_ to be the daughter of Satan, the guy who took credit for beating Cell when it was really Gohan. Most of the other people came to be a part of the bubble by fighting Goku, including my dad.

To understand why they all ended up being 'friends', you just have to know Goku.

I could go down a list of people who are somewhat slightly associated with the bubble – like the announcer guy at the martial arts tournaments! – but it starts to get really ridiculous. Me being desperate for someone I can relate to, but knowing it's utterly fucking useless.

Out of all the people in the bubble, Goten is the only one that _completes_ me.

Yes, that is a cheesy fucking line that I totally stole out of a retarded fucking movie, but I just can't think of a better way to put it. Sorry. Unlike the idiots in the movie, we have actually been one person, more times than I can remember. After scary Buu got carried away by the only spirit bomb that ever did what it was actually supposed to do, fusion was a fairly regular occurrence for me and Goten, and by the time the other strong people (basically Saiyans and Piccolo) got tired of fighting Gotenks – we pretty much gave it up then, since fusing when there was no one to fight meant being alone instead of getting to hang out with your best friend – it had gotten to the point that we always felt like one person, even in our separate bodies.

***

So . . . in nutshell, that's why I'm sitting here, all alone on a Friday night, feeling bitter . . . feeling like a half a person, jagged edges all broken and bleeding.

Goten claims we will never be one again, but I'm hoping he'll show up tonight. And not because I'm a delusional idiot, either. Not exactly, anyway.

He's between girls right now.

It's happened quite a few times before. They all seem to be really cool girls – you know, the kind I might actually want to hang out with if they weren't fucking my soul mate – but none of them have lasted very long so far. The first one lasted a month. It's been a year since he left me, and there have been at least a dozen of them, week or two on, week or two off.

So yeah, me and Goten are still 'friends', right? Or at least, Goten doesn't seem to want to let me go entirely. We hang out every now and then, and it's not the same, not even close to the same, but I do it because it's the only thing I know. I meet the girls, and it's always just _beyond_ uncomfortable, because, thanks to the mags, they all know our sordid history, or some semi-accurate version of it, possibly straightened out a bit by Goten. I have no idea what he tells them, and don't want to know. But I meet them, and I'm nice to them, and I do everything I can to help assure them that I'm not going to infringe without being rude enough to actually say so.

But when the latest girl is gone, and he comes to me, wanting sex with no strings attached . . . how the fuck am I supposed to say no?

It's the only thing I know . . . or at least, the only thing I know that I am still allowed to have.

Trust me, I want to say no – every time he comes to me, I pray to Dende for the strength to resist, and I hope that fucking pansy-ass Namek doesn't wonder why I never come to visit his sorry green ass any more – I want to be strong and tell Goten to just go away and leave me the fuck alone because his heart just isn't in it. I mean, that's a fucking understatement. And there doesn't seem to be a kami-damned thing I can do about _that_.

But I always cave, because that no-strings-attached sex is the only fucking _passion_ he will give me, and it's so fucking sad, but it's also the only way I can lose myself enough to really pretend that he's still mine. That he still loves me. It's only a temporary, pathetically insufficient fix, and the inevitable coming down is a fucking _bitch_ . . . but I still cave every time.

And he _doesn't_ love me. I wish that I could pretend, outside those occasional moments of passion before my brains rush back into my head. He's been so fucking detached this past year, as if he doesn't give a shit about anything, and all I can do is wonder what I did to make him that way. I know I did _something_, because _my_ Goten wouldn't turn against me if I hadn't done something horrible. But we don't talk about it. The subject of _why_ is forbidden completely. He won't even give me a _hint_, as if really does expect me to already know whatever it was that I did to make him hate me.

Kami, I must be such a fucking _idiot_ . . . What the fuck did I do? I have no fucking clue. None.

Some people say that everyone has a soul mate, and that if you miss your opportunity to be with that person, then you're just shit out of fucking luck. Maybe other people can pretend. Goten seems to be able to do it, after all. Sort of. I just can't. I don't know if there is really a soul mate out there for everyone. But I know mine.

Sometimes I wish I didn't.

***

Maybe 'inferiority complex' is a little too simplistic for what my problem actually is. I guess it just came to mind because I see myself as being superior to the rest of the world in so many ways. My mind can't quite wrap around this irony that I've set myself: that I have so many things that all those people outside the bubble wish they had, but at the same time . . . nothing.

So . . . I don't _really_ wish that I never knew Goten. The only times I do wish that are the times when I've gotten so emotional that I've started ignoring reality altogether, because the reality is that I can't even _imagine_ life without him . . .

I always wanted to meet this version of me from the 'future' that did grow up without Goten, so that I could thank him for going back in time and inadvertently causing Goten to be born by helping Goku to stay alive long enough to knock Chichi up again.

Now I just want to meet him so I can cry on his shoulder and curse him for what he did to me, and listen to his reassuring speeches about how it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. I actually do that, in my twisted little fantasies. Cry on his imaginary shoulder, listen to him reminisce about his soul mate Gohan, who died in his arms. And this is all concocted from my imagination, of course – I find the idea of those two as lovers to be both incredibly romantic and a little bit scandalous – but it gives me a weird outlet for those inconvenient Gohan fantasies . . .

***

I'm jerked out of my thoughts as I realize that Goten's energy is headed this way.

_Well, well, well . . ._

I'm sitting in the middle of nowhere, at least so far as the rest of the world is concerned. For us, it's somewhere. But I didn't come here so he would know where to find me. I can always feel him, just like he can always feel me. That's part of what makes it so hard to forget about him. But only a small part.

I came here to let him know that I was thinking about him. That I wanted to see him. I was sitting here, thinking about him, the first time he came 'back' to me, and it's not something we've ever discussed, but I know he won't come to me unless I'm here.

I stayed away a couple of times he was in between girls. Not away from him, but away from here. I'd go to his house, hang out, listen to him tell me why she didn't work out, what he was looking for in the next one . . . but when I left his place, I went other places. Sometimes home. Sometimes other places in the middle of nowhere.

He never comes unless I'm here.

I was just over at his place a little while ago. He's already got his eye on the next girl, and he was telling me about her various denizens, how he was planning on hitting all of them up tonight until he found her. She gave him her number, of course – Goten never has trouble getting those – but he likes doing it that way. Probably because calling a girl lets her know that you give a shit. 'Randomly' meeting her in a dark club is a different thing altogether, and if you're Goten, it's likely to have the same result.

Usually when he tells me about those kinds of plans, I just go home and hit the spare gravity room, preferably on a setting that I can't handle without transforming, until I'm exhausted enough to put myself out of my misery for the evening.

I'm not sure why I didn't tonight. Because I'm a delusional idiot? Maybe . . .

So, it takes a little more effort than it should to stand up and dust the grass and dirt off my pants. It's another ones of those odd inner conflicts, that I've been sitting here, hoping against the odds that he would come, and at the same time, dreading it.

It's like every one of these misbegotten encounters takes away another little piece of who I am, and if I keep doing it, I'll end up . . . empty. Just a shadow of what I was before.

Why do I still cave? Why do I still come here, hoping he'll show?

I realize that he's always come, every time I have been here. I guess I've just never really thought about it before because I only come when I know he doesn't have anything better to do. Except for that first time, when I came here just to think about him. I didn't expect him to show up then, offering a small taste of what I thought was lost forever.

So, I guess I came here tonight to test him. To see if he would ditch his plans to come here. I wonder if that's what he's actually doing, or if he's just coming out here to taunt me. I can't see him doing it – he hates me, but he's not cruel – but why would he ditch his plans for someone he can't stand? I know he's coming here; he's got a place in West City, and the girl is in West City. There's no other reason for him to head this way.

That's part of the problem with psychoanalyzing yourself. Specifically, I have a hard time facing my motivations until after the deed is done. Sometimes well after. My brain tells me that the horrible whatever that I did to Goten is one of these things, but any attempt to comb my memories of the days before I lost him for clues inevitably draws a blank, leaving me as wide-eyed and clueless as my dad's favorite idiot.

***

Me and Goten trained in this place as long as I can remember. You can definitely tell; the land is pretty much blasted clean in every direction, almost as far as the eye can see, from the center of the field. There are boundaries to the blasted land that have a tendency to change fairly often, but we've managed not to destroy the forest on the northern edge of the destruction zone.

The trees cover the foothills leading up to a range of old mountains, capped with snow even now, in early summer. There's a particularly gigantic mountain that cuts to the edge of the foothills in one spot, with a fair-sized river flowing from below the snow-capped peak, twisting around the mountain to end in a two-thousand-foot drop to a large lake deep inside the forest, in a huge bowl-shaped valley near the base of the mountain, hidden by the surrounding hills and dense trees.

I know where I am going, though. A quick flight over the low hills, and I'm dropping down to a place near the bottom of the waterfall, still hundreds of feet above the lake.

The pressure of the falling water at that spot could seriously injure or kill most people, but it only feels like a massage to me as I fly through the water as quickly as possible, coming out on the other side in a cave, completely hidden from outside view. A bit of energy to light the lamps, illuminating the cave. He's getting close, and I want to be ready when he comes.

Another small bit of energy to dry my hair and my clothes, and a little more to dry out the bedding at the back of the cave, behind the fire pit we made for the cold winter nights. We set up the bedding back there when we were kids, often using it to camp out after long days of fighting in the destruction zone. We figured out pretty fast that it's impossible to keep bedding from getting all mildewed in this cave. So Goten got the bright idea to ask Piccolo if he could make bedclothes that won't mildew. Would you believe that he can?

Our innocent sexual escapades began here, and continued here almost exclusively; we can't go all out in the cave, but the fact that it's on the edge of our training field masks what we're doing to anyone on the planet that can sense us. That is, if they don't happen to wonder why we're sparring in the middle of the night (a recent development – we favored daytime sex before the split), or why we never power up enough to really destroy anything. You'd think it would make more sense just to hang it all and have wild monkey sex out in the destruction zone, but we have only had the nerve to do that once.

Countless hours wasted away in this cave, sometimes with sex, but sometimes just talking, about our dreams, and our plans for our life. We could do that anywhere, just talking, but this was our cave, and we liked it here. We would sit for hours and watch the waterfall, sitting where the mist barely touches your skin, listening to the water as it patiently waged its war on the rock, above and below.

***

I can feel him, right outside now, and I realize that the tears are already streaming down my face. Every time he's come to me here, I've been crying. It's like his presence, just here in this place, brings all of those lost dreams to the forefront of my mind, overwhelming me. I can keep it under control, when I see him somewhere else. Usually. But in this place, I'm a slave to the past.

Maybe that's why I can't say no when he comes. Or maybe it's just because I'm a delusional idiot, hoping he'll snap out of it, and willing to take whatever drabbles come my way in the meantime, and to be thankful for them. And isn't that just pitiful?

[[This chapter was cut in half. To read the rest, go to aff or mediaminer.]]


	2. Something Unexpected

[This story will not make sense unless you read the full version. See author profile for instruction.]

**Warnings for this chapter:** wandering thoughts and elaborate backstories, angst and self-delusion, small clues and huge flashing arrows, and a bonus pairing, slightly citric but not of the bright yellow variety. Apparent OOC-ness that might possibly make more sense in the next (and final) chapter.

**CHAPTER TWO**

_Something Unexpected_

So, that's how I ended up dragging my ass out of bed well before the crack of dawn on maybe two hours of sleep if I was lucky, for once semi-grateful, in a fit of clearly circular logic, that I never managed to move out and get a place with Goten, since all I had to do was go downstairs to the kitchen and make myself some coffee so that I would be at least somewhat awake by the time dad came down. As surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, dad will be training before it does, just like every fucking day of his life.

The aroma of coffee by itself is enough to get my senses going, and the taste, with just the right amount of sweet and creamy . . . ahhhhhhh. Divine. Incredibly unhealthy, but fortunately Saiyan physiology is a little better at sorting out what it needs and what it doesn't need than the human body, and I can't see that I have missed out on that benefit any for being only half-Saiyan. Fortunately – or unfortunately? I honestly don't know – it also means that we can't really get intoxicated, on alcohol or any other kind of drug, and with the exception of certain things like antibiotics and antiviral medicines, drugs don't work on Saiyans at all; caffeine doesn't actually do anything to us, but the smell and the taste and the heat of coffee is something we all crave, for some reason, and it wakes us up in the morning just like it does everyone else.

I know dad eats a fair bit, and I do too, especially when I know I'm going to be training later in the day, so I start throwing together some food accordingly. There are a couple of nice-looking hams in the refrigerator, clove-baked, and already sliced, so I kick on the oven to heat those up, grab a few dozen eggs, and start cracking.

Dad finally strolls in, arching an eyebrow at me to acknowledge the strangeness of my presence in the kitchen at this hour. He is a man of few words at the best of times, and he's not especially talkative in the mornings, so I save him the trouble of answering by not bothering to greet him, as he no doubt expects. I put the hams in the oven as he pours his coffee – of course he drinks it black and bitter – and I start beating the eggs, adding some seasoning, and filling up the toasters with grain bread.

By the time the food is done, I figure dad has had enough coffee for a question.

"Can you train me today?" I ask, trying to make it sound like it's not really all that important. I put a ham and a plate of eggs in front of him, and a pile of toast, and he seems to consider the question before digging into his food without comment. Not unexpected, so I mosey over to the fridge to get some juice – one carton for each of us – and I settle down with my food, doing my best to make it look like I only woke up this early because I was really fucking hungry.

I watch him put away the whole ham and half the eggs and toast, taking a break for juice before putting down the rest. He eats pretty slow for a Saiyan, and though he did manage to instill into me something of his idea about how a prince eats, as opposed to how a disgusting, uncivilized third class idiot eats – I do eat a lot slower than Goten, for example, and _everyone_ eats slower than Goku – I don't have either Dad's infinite patience or his legendary and quite-unrivaled ego, so I'm forced to watch him eat well after my half is gone.

I know he's deliberating, or he would have just said no a long time ago. Probably because he is aware of my situation and is at least a little bit proud that I have decided that my training is more important than moping over my lost partner.

The last bit of egg discreetly disappears behind Saiyan lips, just as gracefully as you please. Shot of juice, delicate dabbing of the napkin on said lips, and he assumes a ponderous posture, eyes not-focused on some object over there, fingers stroking his chin.

Finally, he looks at me, his mind obviously made up. "I cannot train you today."

Ah, well. Not completely unexpected. He looks away for just an instant, with something like regret in his eyes – he sympathizes with me, though it's not the sort of thing he's likely to admit – and when he looks back at me, it's as if I imagined it. But I know better. "There is something I need to work on presently." And his eyes seem to look inward at that, before focusing on me again. "I will probably succeed within a few days. Then there is something I must take care of." Hint of a smile, glint of mischief in the eyes. "After that, I will likely be free to train you whenever you wish." He nods to himself. "At least every other day."

Yeah. There's only one thing that he could possibly be talking about, and we all know _that_ will never happen. But that's dad. He always seems to think it will be any day now.

"That sounds good, dad," I say, doing a pretty good job of keeping the disappointment out of my voice, trying to seem casual as I get up from the table and start clearing away dishes. Dad doesn't offer to help. He never does. I don't hold it against him or anything; it's just how he is. He's the prince. Nevermind that I'm supposed to be one too. Whenever he's around, that doesn't count. "I'll probably head out to the mountains and see if one of the _other_ Go-boys wants to train me." Which would have to be Goku. It's Saturday, so Gohan will be home, but Videl doesn't like it when Gohan does stuff without her, which means he can't train with us unless she happens to decide to go somewhere else for a while, because she isn't anywhere near strong enough to join in the training, and she isn't even fast enough to _watch_, unless we're just dicking around.

I'm sort of hoping that proposition will get a reaction out of Dad, but he just nods to himself again. "You do that, Trunks," he says, as he stands, tossing his napkin on the table and heading for the outside door. It seems he's in too good of a mood to be baited. But as he reaches the door, he turns, considering me again. "It is good that you have decided not to loll about like a human any longer," he says, and though he does his best to load the comment with a fair amount of scorn, that hint of sympathy is back in his eyes again.

Well. Maybe he really will be up for training me in a few days, unattainable goal or no.

The door opens, and closes again, and I'm all alone in the kitchen. So, I get on with cleaning up, and I post a note to the refrigerator door, putting in a request to the cook for some more of that ham, which was fantastic, and I'm out the door on the way to Sonville. If I don't burn off some energy soon, I'm going to spend half the morning locked up in the bathroom with my fan mags. There are definitely better ways to spend a Saturday morning.

The sun's still not up yet, so I'm not especially paranoid about taking off directly from our front yard, and it doesn't take long to reach a height where I can see the sun already, where no one on the ground can quite make out exactly what sort of flying object I am. About ten minutes to reach the quaint little mountains where the Son clan lives, minus Goten of course, which is, alas, exactly what I'm after anyway.

I touch down in the yard just as the sun crests the mountain horizon. Videl is on the front porch of her house, watering some plants in her bathrobe. She looks up, notices me with the most insultingly horrified expression I have ever seen, and literally plunges through the front door of the house, slamming it behind her. I can feel Gohan's energy stirring at the back of the house. _Sorry bout that Gohan. Hope you can sleep in tomorrow._

I hear a laugh from the general direction of the other house in Sonville, and I realize it's coming from the back yard, where Goku is rather lazily dancing some weird moves in the trees, wearing the loose black fighting clothes he's been wearing every day for almost as long as I've known him. For all I know, those moves might be a part of his daily routine; I've never exactly made it a point to hang out at Goten's house at this time of the morning. But Goku has stopped the dancing thing, and he's leaning against a tree, apparently waiting for me to come to him.

When I get close, I notice he has one of those rare, mischievous-Goku smiles on his face. _Is it going around this morning or what? _And then he says, "Gohan should have taught her to sense us years ago." Of course. As if it would be a good thing to have _more_ people know exactly what we are doing and where we are at any given time. And if Goku really wanted her to know, why didn't he teach her? I mean, she lives right across the yard.

He then puts on his usual wide-eyed and empty-headed expression, and said, "I was going to come for you in a little bit. Then I felt you coming this way, and I know how I love flying into the sunrise, so . . ." He makes a random gesture with his hands that is apparently supposed to translate to 'of course I wasn't going to rob you of that pleasure', and claps me on the shoulder, big stupid grin on his face. Sometimes it's really easy to understand my dad's love-hate relationship with this guy.

"Yeah, Goku. Did Goten put you up to that?" As if I don't already know the answer to that question. It wasn't exactly unexpected.

He pouts like a little kid at the accusation, but makes no attempt to deny it. "Well, yeah," he says, face brightening suddenly. "He said you need someone to train you when your dad is busy, and Vegeta almost never wants to train with _me_, and Videl won't let Gohan train, and Goten would rather chase grr . . . I mean, Goten just doesn't like training much any more."

I roll my eyes at his 'slip' – maybe my dad has brainwashed me a little bit, but I get the impression that at least half the time Goku puts his foot in his mouth, it's not accidental – and wouldn't you know, he seems just a tad bit sheepish.

And then he imitates Dad's pondering posture almost exactly, or at least as closely as it could be imitated while standing. I could almost think he had been spying in the kitchen earlier. "Besides, me and your Dad have let you and Goten go for far too long without a _real_ training regimen." And then to top it all off, he puts his hands on his hips and bends his neck down to twinkling eye level with me, for all the world as if he were a foot taller than me instead of three inches, and then proceeds to talk down to me as if I were his own wayward spawn. "It was good for you two to train together when you were younger, Trunks, but now you're adults, and we need to start treating you that way."

Something in his eyes tells me that today is not going to be easy.

Am I looking forward to it? Fuck yeah, I'm looking forward to it. "Let's go." A hand on my shoulder, and a smile, and a massive sinking feeling hits that has nothing to do with my personal atoms being scattered to various corners of the universe before realigning somewhere over there . . . a massive sinking feeling that I know where he's taking us. My eyes are squeezed shut, but the direction and relative distance of Gohan's energy as we realign confirms my suspicions anyway.

Well. What did I expect? I open my eyes to find Goku staring at me rather concernedly, and a weight is lifted from my shoulders that I hadn't even known was there, as I realize that Goten probably didn't put him up to bringing us here. There is a difference between 'Hi my name is Goku and I'm clueless' and actual confusion. At least, I'm pretty sure there is. Sure enough not to worry about it overly.

He looks around, checking out the scenery as if he's never seen it before. He doesn't train with us here, but he's been here several times over the years, usually just popping in to say hi whenever he happens to be in the mood. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know about the cave behind the waterfall, though. We worked hard to keep that little secret. I know he can't see it from here, anyway. Just looks like some mountains and a bunch of trees from where we are, nearly in the center of the blasted area.

Goku turns his back to me, seeming to inspect the forested mountains to the north. I take a seat on a nearby rock, figuring he'll let me know when he's done checking out the neighborhood.

It's easy to pretend, if I try, that it's just an older version of Goten, standing over there.

Goten went through a phase that lasted a few months, where he tried to grow his hair out longer so that he didn't look like his dad any more. Then he tried keeping it short, much to his mother's approval. When he left me, he seemed to give up on it, and thus he reverted to mini-Goku.

And there is just something about Goku that puts people at ease. I've even seen my dad fall victim to that compulsion, in the rare moments when he lets down his guard. That feeling . . . that was _my_ Goten, before . . . and truthfully, even Goku can't put me at ease like my other half did. The real Goku is too intimidating by far.

So, I do pretend, letting my eyes half-close, letting my mind drift . . . even now, I think of him as a grown-up version of my mini-Goku, even though Goten is pretty much grown now, and I begin to project my sense of Goten onto the man that I can see and sense.

_My_ Goten, somehow become bigger, and stronger. Much stronger. Strong enough to take me down without even trying, but I know that he will only take me down far enough to make me come back stronger, and that the taking will be _sublime._

And that's how I know it's really him . . . his energy, stronger than I ever thought it would become, just _oozes_ pure goodness, good will toward me. It always has. There isn't a thing in the world I wouldn't trust him with. He knows all of my secrets, and I know all of his. I find myself getting up from the rock to go to him, wondering why I was over there in the first place.

When the apparition finally speaks, I wish I could see his face.

"I was going to bring you to the place where I train with Vegeta," he began, spoiling both my carefully-crafted illusion and my earlier assurances in one blow – an unexpected chill traveled the length of my spine as the illusion dissolved, leaving the object of my intimidation in its place – "but Goten said you like training here better than anywhere else." Well. Goten would know, wouldn't he?

Goku walks a little further away, turning to face the rising sun. After a second or two of observation, I recognize his stance for what it is. Only my daydreaming kept me from picking up on it sooner.

It's an invitation, of sorts. If I don't accept it, then the blows will start soon.

Even if I do accept – which I believe I will – we will be getting down to the training soon enough, but one thing that I have learned from Goten about his dad's training style is that he likes to manipulate his opponent's emotions. It's something he only does when he considers the training to be particularly serious – which I haven't personally experienced since Buu, when things were undeniably _serious_ – and I should probably feel honored, or something, that he's doing it with me now.

I've never seen the tactic in action with his sons. It's apparently something he saves for when they're alone, and Goten has always been a little reluctant to give details beyond the fact that it doesn't seem to work with him – something about not having the right experiences to draw on – but I've seen Goku do it often enough with my dad, off the battlefield. I never get to watch their rare training sessions; dad normally refuses, and apparently never trained with Goku at all before Buu. Dad has let up since then, if seldom, and always with a fair amount of reluctance.

Whenever he has been putting Goku off just a little too long, that's when it begins. Goku starts dropping in at random times, hanging around the house, being generally annoying and doing his best to push dad's buttons as innocently as he can manage, which he of course does better than anyone else in the universe. My dad is pretty predictable, when it comes to that; so long as a third class idiot remains the strongest being in the universe, the Prince of All Saiyans will have a serious problem with it. I can only imagine what it's like when they actually get around to fighting, beyond knowing that it is always brutal. And that dad never wins.

In the meantime, Goku seems to want to play my surrogate dad, let me tell him about what's bothering me, bring all my closely-held angst about Goten to the surface, hopefully getting my emotions riled up with me none the wiser about his goals.

It's a win-win situation for him; either I get pissed or I get inconsolably depressed and start crying – I am _so_ unlike my dad in that it is much more likely to be the latter, but like him in the sense that I am quite incapable of completely turning off my emotions – and Goku can use either to his advantage.

Goten says the method stems from the fact that his dad has always reached new levels of strength through his emotions, and naturally he expects that any Saiyan can do the same. Supposedly, it's how Gohan first transformed, back when I was a baby, and me-from-the-future, who was here to help fight the androids, had transformed when his beloved Master Gohan died, back in the future.

Dad has always been pretty closemouthed about how he did it, but I can somewhat piece it together, just by knowing when. Goku was near enough by that there was bound to be some angst, and I imagine that dad wasn't too happy about being forced to live here, in his rival's shadow.

In fact, I'm sure dad knows all about Goku's thing with manipulating emotions, and that he most likely takes advantage of it as best he can without playing Goku's game.

So, Goku wants me to let it all out. If that's what he wants, then that's what I will give him. But not in the way that he expects.

I accept the invitation, moving to close the distance between us, slowly. He can feel me, making my humble pilgrimage to his beacon of light and goodness and truth.

"Goten told you why he hates me, didn't he?"

If the question surprises him, then I can see no sign of it, but he hesitates before answering, and I count it as a point in my favor. Goku is obviously going to bat for Goten here, and despite that warm fuzzy feeling emanating from his general direction, the feeling that has felled more cunning warriors than myself, I probably shouldn't trust him. In fact, it's precisely because of that warm fuzzy feeling that I should be on my guard.

My dad is always saying that Goku uses his naivety as a weapon, and though I've never had much reason to think the idea amounted anything more than dad's usual obsessive paranoia, it would probably also be wise for me to remember that my dad has survived a lifetime of battles, while I've seen exactly one, which I did not, in fact, manage to survive.

Dad did better than I did in that one, of course; after his initial display of hero-inspired dramatic suicide, he managed to come back, and survive the worst part of the battle, despite actually being dead. Also of course, Goku managed to survive despite being dead to begin with . . .

As I step into his morning shadow, something occurs to me.

***

My mom always said that Goku really was pure-hearted, and innocent about a lot of things. I mean, she grew up with the guy, knew him when he was a pre-pubescent fighting machine, right? She should know.

She said he didn't start to become all that multi-faceted until around the time I was born, and she insists, despite some small evidence to the contrary, that he is still pure-hearted, that he really does think about what's best for everybody when he makes decisions, and he almost always makes the right ones. She says she respects him more than any person she's ever known, with dad coming a close second, and though she's never told me that in front of dad, she never asked me to keep it a secret, either.

I guess dad just doesn't quite measure up because of all the people he's killed. It might be different if he had truly been rehabilitated when he came to live on earth, but he caved in to his inner murdering madman one more time, and that was only about ten years ago. He wished everyone back, helped save the universe and everything, which is all in his favor, but he had needed Goku to make it happen.

Mom has a theory, that the change came about because Goku had been forced to transform to defeat Frieza. She thinks that, if he had gone his whole life without doing that, he might still be the sweet, innocent Goku that my dad fought when he first came to Earth. But he is a pure-blooded Saiyan. It seems to make almost no difference, in some areas, that my generation is half-human – proves that it doesn't prevent us from becoming just as strong as purebloods, or even stronger; me-from-the-future was stronger than dad at one point, though I never have been, unless you count when I'm fused with Goten; and finally, me and Goten transformed when we were like five, while our dads didn't manage it till they were fully adults – but there are little things, like the sense of smell, the communion with the moon, the taste of blood . . . my generation got almost nothing there, beside the fact that we would transform with the full moon if we still had our tails.

I have heard some stories from Goten, about what his brother was going through at that time, when their dad became . . . different.

Goku and Piccolo had been training Gohan for three years, thanks to me-from-the-future giving them a heads-up about the androids, but nothing turned out quite like they expected . . . which led to my dad training alongside (not with) me-from-the-future in the hyperbolic time chamber, and Goku training Gohan . . . which, of course, led to the aforementioned transformation that came because Goku had manipulated his son's emotions.

But apparently, Gohan said that it hadn't been quite enough. Maybe, at that moment, he didn't have the right experiences to draw on.

He'd had to tell his dad to go all out on him, stop playing around. Actually try to _kill_ him. And Gohan claims that Goku would never have even considered it, if Gohan hadn't brought it up, and insisted on it.

But Goku had done it, and on the crushing edge of his dad's _kamehameha_, Gohan had found his inner Saiyan.

He also says he doesn't think his dad would have done it at all a few years before, wouldn't have even if Gohan had been an adult. And he tells another interesting story – one that I'm surprised my dad has never mentioned – about the Cell Games.

Goku fought Cell, and he claimed that he wasn't strong enough to win, and forfeited the fight to his eleven-year-old son. Gohan was surprised, believing that his dad had been holding back, playing with Cell, up until that point, and you would think that he would know, since he had just spent a year training with the guy, right?

But Goku insisted that he hadn't been holding back, that Gohan simply couldn't believe that he could be stronger than his dad, and therefore convinced himself of a falsity. And when poor eleven-year-old Gohan was faced with his hero's arguments, he had no choice but to believe that his dad was telling the truth.

And this is where it gets really strange.

When Gohan stepped up to fight Cell, Goku gave Cell a senzu bean (!) ensuring that the monster would be in tip-top shape to fight Gohan.

Needless to say, everyone was perplexed.

To make a long story short, Gohan fought Cell, and proceeded to beat the shit out of him so badly that the android had spit out 18, losing his 'perfect' body, reverting to the form that my dad – still much weaker than Goku, and even weaker than me-from-the-future – could have easily beaten. In desperation, Cell chose to engage his self-destruct mechanism, making it so that there was absolutely nothing Gohan could do to prevent Cell from destroying the Earth. Attacks of any kind would have only sped up the process.

And then, Goku, Mr. Hero as always, steps in right in the nick of time, the only guy present with the ability to teleport, and he takes Cell to Otherworld, destroying King Kai's planet and killing Goku, Bubbles, Gregory, and King Kai himself.

Some small bit of Cell survived, though, allowing him to use his Namek regeneration technique, and when he came back, he had reverted to his 'perfect' form, having learned Goku's nifty trick in the process, _and_, because he had Saiyan cells, and because he had come as close to death as is androidly possible, he also came back a great deal stronger than he had been before.

Naturally, Gohan was fucking pissed. So, he proceeded to beat the shit out of Cell again. Cell kills me-from-the-future, further pissing off Gohan, not to mention my dad, who then tried to beat the shit out of Cell, knowing he had no chance. Gohan has to save dad from Cell, and loses the use of an arm in the process. Gohan almost bails, but then Hero Dad pays him a mental visit from Otherworld, giving him a pep-talk, and Gohan blasts Cell to hell with a one-armed _kamehameha._

So, looking back, you have to wonder . . . would it all have gone the same if Goku hadn't given Cell a _senzu_? An analysis of the details seems to suggest that it probably would have . . . but it was a really strange thing for Goku to do.

That's the kicker, though . . . it's only strange because it was _Goku_. Mr. _Perfect_. If my dad had done something like that, no one would have been at all surprised; in fact, Cell had only achieved his 'perfect' form in the first place because dad had allowed it, wanting to fight the android at his best, to prove how awesome he was, and he had nearly killed me-from-the-future for trying to interfere.

But lurking under the surface is that other question . . . the one that began to trouble Gohan as he got older.

Did Goku hold back?

There are two reasons I can think of that he might have done it. The more noble option is that Goku honestly worried that he might die, and that there would be no one to protect the Earth when he was gone, or that some day in the future, he might not be strong enough to do it without help. Thus, he used the heightened emotions of the Cell catastrophe to make Gohan stronger, and giving Cell a _senzu_ was his only way to make sure that Gohan was pushed to reach his full potential. If anything went wrong in the fight, then he could step in, saving the day as usual.

The other option is that Goku was simply trying to show off his freak son. I mean, someone who _really_ didn't trust Goku might assume that he pretended to be weaker than Gohan long enough to let Gohan get stronger, _so that he could be more proud of his son_, and that, if Goku had lived, the truth would have come out later.

The latter is the sort of thing my dad would never have done, simply because he wouldn't have allowed anyone to believe that he was weaker than his own son for even that long, if there was a way around it. But my dad is a cynic, and chances are, he remembers the incident, and interprets Goku's actions with the less noble motive.

Anyway . . . that thing that occurred to me.

I realize that, ever since Goten told me about this – I mean, it's not as if we discussed it all that deeply – I have interpreted it like my dad would, even though I knew Goten didn't. I'm not all that surprised at myself, really, because I've always had a tendency to glorify my dad.

But now, in the back of my head, I hear my mom assuring me that Goku is really a good guy.

I'm still on my guard – after all, I can't get rid of dad's influence completely, and I'm not sure it would be wise to try – but I decide to trust her. I may not be able to fully trust Goku's motives here, but I _can_ trust that he won't do anything truly horrible, and if I allow him to put me on edge, then the chances are that today won't go well.

***

He must feel me breathing down his neck, because he finally turns to face me. And I can't say I'm all that surprised to see sympathy. His big black eyes almost look like they're on the edge of tears. It's so heartwarming, it makes me want to puke. _I'm trying, mom._

I take no insult. There's probably a pretty good chance that he chose that emotion deliberately as the one he would show me, but that doesn't mean the sympathy isn't real.

"He only told me yesterday," Goku said, softly. That doesn't surprise me either. I've questioned him before, of course, and he claimed ignorance, along with Gohan, Chichi, mom and dad, and everyone else in the bubble. All of them said the same thing: Goten didn't tell them anything except that he didn't love me any more.

"And?" I don't know why I even hope he'll tell me. I should know better. But it doesn't hurt to ask.

Goku's eyes grow sadder still, if that's even possible, confirming my suspicions. "He made me promise not to tell anyone, Trunks." A tinge of embarrassment, to go with the sympathy. "Especially you," he adds, more quietly than before.

I don't fight the surge of anger that comes with those words, but I pivot quickly, turning to hide the tears that begin to flow. _Fuck, Goten! What did I fucking do? _I sink to my knees, giving in to the emotions. I doubt Goku thought he could get them out of me so quickly. But I'm not going to fight him on this.

It's probably exactly what I need.

I knew it would only be a matter of time, so I'm only grateful when I feel his hands on my shoulders, massaging away the tension I hadn't consciously recognized.

"I'm so sorry, Trunks," he whispered, so much compassion in his voice. And it just makes me bawl more, to finally have someone that cares after all this time, someone who knows Goten almost as well as I do, an outlet I crave. "I'm so sorry . . ." I lean back on his chest, trying to control my sobbing so that I can speak.

I'm not satisfied with his answer. Not even close.

Finally, after several deep breaths, accompanied by the magic of those strong hands on my shoulders, I manage to croak out my question. I'm _so fucking scared_ of the answer to this one . . . but I have to ask.

"Was it horrible, Goku?" My voice sounds so small, pitiful. Maybe I really am weak, just like Goten said . . .

The hands come to a rest, thumbs still idly stroking, as if Goku is not quite aware of them anymore. I find myself on my guard once again, if not quite so fiercely as before. Even his voice is hesitant, when he answers.

"I think that . . . most people would probably agree that it's one of the worst things you could do to a person," he says finally, reluctantly.

_What the fuck? _The anger surges anew, threatening to boil over. In a flash, I'm on my feet, turning to face Goku; through a heavy film of fury, I can see wariness overtake sympathy in his features as he stands to face me.

"What do _you_ think, Goku? Don't fucking play games with me!" I ignore the fact that I decided earlier that I need his games. I've forgotten what for; the rage has me in its grip. "Tell me what _you_ think, Goku. Because I don't have a fucking clue!" I'm in his face now, shouting, but he makes no move to back away. "Tell me!" His features are still guarded, almost impossible to read, and now I feel like an idiot, because I've run out of vitriol, and I'm an inch from his nose. Me, toe-to-toe with the strongest being in the universe. I feel a blush in my face as I back down a few inches, but it's only partly from embarrassment. _Why won't he fucking answer me?_

"I'm _not_ playing games with you, Trunks," he says firmly, eyes determined to show me the truth of what he says, and he reaches out to put a fatherly hand on my shoulder again, adding, "but I don't think I should tell you what I think about it, either." He seems to consider saying more, so I step an inch closer to him, encouraging him, but that wariness is back in full force, now. "I don't want to take sides, Trunks," he says, regret in his eyes.

And just like that, my anger pops like a bubble. More like a fucking water balloon, as the tears rush in to wash away the ire, and before I know it, my face is buried on his chest, my hands fisting his shirt, my tears soaking it, and somehow the tears are impairing my ability to breathe. _Fuck, I'm a mess._

But how can I stay angry, when he won't even take his son's side? _What a fucking rollercoaster. . ._

He won't exonerate me – in fact, what he said seems to make it all but positive that Goten is right, and I'm a fucking monster – but he won't take sides, either.

It's enough.

Slowly, the tears begin to subside again. His arms are around me now, idly stroking my back, trying to soothe my shaking, and he's whispering idiotic parental comforting shit at me, like . . . 'shhhh . . . it will work out . . . everything will be okay . . .'

The fuck it will be okay.

I realize that he's trying to guide me to sit down again. It's probably a good idea, so I move my body obediently, but my eyes are staring out into space, and my thoughts are listless.

It's an interesting side effect of the rollercoaster, that I seem to have momentarily managed to detach myself from my emotions. I know it won't last – I can feel them, still churning under the radar somewhere – but I no longer feel like talking.

He sits behind me, holding me, which I am grateful for, because even sitting up is a little much right now. I lean back into him, closing my eyes, relaxing. His fingers are in my hair now, stroking it, massaging my scalp, and his aura radiates his concern for me. I wish he was always that easy to read, but rarely are his thoughts so clear from his energy than they are right now.

I'm not sure how long we sit there like that – it seemed to stretch on forever, his hands soothing me, encouraging me to return to the world of the living, but not rushing me – but after a while, I feel comfortable enough to let it all out.

"You just don't understand what it's like, Goku . . ." All my memories are bubbling to the surface, inundating me with all that lost happiness, and I'm about to tell him exactly why he just can't understand. "He is my other half, Goku. There's no one else in the universe . . ." I trail off, knowing the words are pitiful, won't help him see. Nobody can understand what me and Goten had.

But all of a sudden, I find myself flipped, with uncanny Saiyan speed, face-to-face with Goku again, straddling his lap.

Well. My surrogate father seems a bit angry with me. He doesn't give me much time to wonder why.

"Do you really believe that, Trunks? That I don't understand?" His actually seems offended. Incredulous. Why should I be surprised? I'm obviously clueless when it comes to certain things.

Seeing no harm in sticking my neck out – despite his current irritation with me, his aura still tells me he gives a shit – I offer the obvious argument. "Of course you don't understand, Goku! You've been happily married for . . . what? Twenty-five or thirty years? Two perfect sons, quaint mountain home. How could you _possibly_ fucking understand?" Is he _laughing_ at me? He is! He seems to be fighting a smile, and there's a chaotic twinkle in his eyes . . . but I can't help but notice a hint of bitterness there, as well. Even his aura has become tinged with it.

"You have spent your entire life so far up Goten's ass that I don't guess I should be surprised," he says with a sigh, picking me up off of his lap, plunking _my_ ass quite unceremoniously on the ground, and standing, dusting off his loose pants, facing eastward again, where the sun has long since left the horizon behind. I know this conversation can't last much longer. We came here to train. I imagine Goku will be getting to the point soon enough.

Having more or less recovered from my earlier weakness, I stand to face him. _Up Goten's ass? _Did he really have to be so literal about it? I don't think I've ever even heard him use the word 'ass' before! And what is this obvious thing that I'm supposed to be missing here? I cast a few thoughts around, searching for something that makes sense . . .

Oh. _That._

No fucking wonder he's laughing at me . . .

"Wow, Goku," I say, hoping I don't sound traumatized, or anything. I'm not . . . just a _little_ bit surprised. "I mean . . . it's not like I haven't considered it before." I think the last time was yesterday, in fact. "But . . . I mean . . . it would certainly explain a lot of things . . . but have you . . . I mean . . . was there . . . anything _between_ you guys?" I find myself wanting him to say there was. What does _that_ mean? I'm not sure I want to know. Maybe he recognizes my . . . fascination . . . with the subject, because the bitterness seems forgotten now, the twinkling reduced to pure amusement. I don't have the decency to be embarrassed. "Well?"

"Not exactly," he says cautiously, obviously not wanting to say too much. I hate secrets.

"What do you mean, 'not exactly'? Either there was something, or there wasn't."

"We fused, Trunks. Remember?" Ah, yes. That makes sense, actually. He's looking off into the distance, now, and I realize it's in dad's general direction. "That was the only . . . _something_," he says, voice full of regret, "but it was enough." Poor, poor Goku.

He really does understand me . . .

He has another half, too . . . and in more ways than one.

My dad is the other half of the Saiyan race. And the heir to the now-destroyed Saiyan throne. I always figured that didn't mean anything to Goku. But maybe I was wrong . . .

Fusion makes communication rather unnecessary, in some ways. It's impossible to take away all of the other person's memories, but there is always a good bit of sharing of experiences in fusion, and it's never really relevant until the fusion dissolves, of course. At which point, there is usually no need to talk about it.

It could have been something simple, like either dad or Goku having fantasized about it, just once. Maybe both of them.

It could have been more complex. My dad is pretty obsessed, after all, and by all appearances, had been long before they fused. And Goku loves fighting more than anything in the world, and I don't think that he is very good at hiding the fact that he wants to train with dad more than anyone else. I never met him till he came back from the dead, but dad says that Goku wanted to train with him to fight the androids, right after he came back from space. Ostensibly because he wanted to steal dad's techniques and 'learn his weaknesses'.

Heh . . . I guess the latter, at least, turned out to be true after all . . .

I had always assumed that they had married women because that was what they wanted to do, but in retrospect, I realize that's pretty stupid. Goku was already married when they met, and here on lovely planet Earth, that just doesn't really mean anything. It's what people do.

Mom just happened to offer dad a place to live when he came back from the dead, while Goku was hanging out in space after beating Frieza. Dad's life-long oppressor, destroyer of the Saiyan race. Dad just happens to pick up mom in the years of training that follow. Mom, who, in retrospect, quite obviously had the hots for Goku when she first saw him as an adult, after a three-year period of not seeing him at all. I've heard her tell the story enough times to have a good sense of that, now . . . now that Goku has crushed my tendency to ignore the possibility of the actions of parental figures being in any way motivated by sex.

Yes, my mother always gets a little cattish, when describing Goku's whirlwind 'romance' with Chichi, and to be honest, I've never understood how a guy could get downright _tricked_ into being married, and mistake it for true love. But he obviously loves her, right? He sure as hell puts up with a lot of crap that most sane people would not otherwise put up with. So of course I have always assumed it was what he wanted.

Maybe he really did think that was what he wanted, before the fusion. Maybe he had only thought about dad, but never _seriously_ considered doing anything about it. Maybe he had thought there was something wrong with him, until me and Goten turned out that way. Maybe, he still loves her?

"What about Chichi?" Well, I am nothing if not brave, right? The question calls Goku back from his meditation on my dad's distant energy, and he looks mildly irritated. I would feel bad, but he is the one that insisted on sharing my suffering in the first place, so I don't really.

His irritation quickly fades to sadness, telling me most of what I need to know, already. But he answers the question, looking away from me, back to dad again. "After the fusion . . ." He trails off, begins again in a slightly more confident tone. "After everything had settled down, with Buu and all . . . I told her I loved someone else."

Ouch. He did that, huh? Ten years ago. "And how did she react to that?"

"Actually . . . she said she understood," he says, seeming to look inward. "And I don't really have any reason to believe that she was being untruthful." Goku does seem pretty good at reading people, when it comes to honesty. "She didn't even seem surprised. And said she felt like she was getting too old for sex, anyway." No doubt. It doesn't really matter how gentle Goku was, I'm quite sure that Chichi the most active and vigorous sex life of any woman on the planet, besides Videl and my mom. It's probably enough to make most human women want to retire early.

But poor Goku. He hasn't been getting _any_ since then? Ten years? Well, I already knew he was a stronger man than I . . .

I walk around so that he will have to look at me, if he needs the strength of a Saiyan prince just to speak. He meets my eyes, with a small, knowing smile . . . a smile that he usually reserves for my dad. And it surprises me, that Goku and I seem to have switched roles all of a sudden.

Here, in this territory . . . yes, he understands me. I know that now. But still, as far as this is concerned, he is only learning to take his first steps, while I have been walking for so long that I don't remember learning how. I realize that he has probably been _dying_ to talk to someone about this. For ten years.

"So . . ." I casually plant my hands on my hips, imitating his earlier stance, from when we were behind his house, looking him up and down as if to weigh his worth, something I learned from dad. Goku is still smiling that special smile at me, so I gather he appreciates it, for whatever reason. "Not even a kiss, huh?"

He rewards my bravery with a genuine laugh, eyes animated once again. "Does that count?"

"Of course it does." I find myself inching toward him, hanging on his next words. Shameless.

"Only once," he says, giving me that smile again. He spots the rock I had been sitting on earlier, and makes himself comfortable, and I stand over him, arms crossed over my chest, waiting for him to divulge the details. I'm still standing in his path to dad, but his eyes have that faraway look again as he speaks . . .

"It was right after we fused, after everything got straightened out, after I told Chichi. I went to find him, hoping he had done the same. I knew, from his memories, that he wanted me. That he dreamed about me, dreamed about beating me always, but sometimes . . . sometimes he would dream about claiming his prize, instead of killing me." Goku's eyes seem to take on a sharper edge as he continued. "Sometimes he dreamed about losing. More so, in the years that I was dead. As if he had become more comfortable with the idea, knowing I was supposedly never coming back." Oh, now _that_ is interesting, and brings to mind a question.

"Does that have anything to do with why he gave in to his evil side again?" With my dad's pride, it might have been enough, just to have Goku come back, making all that fantasy quite awkwardly real.

"It had everything to do with it, Trunks." His face is downcast again, but something seems to occur to him, brightening his mood. "But I knew all that after the fusion. He couldn't hide it from me then." Of course. "And he knew . . . he knew I had wanted him since the first time we met." Oh, wow. That was certainly unexpected.

"Really, Goku? All that time?" Freaking fantastic. "Is that why you let him live?"

His eyebrows shoot up. "No! I mean . . . maybe. I don't like killing people." Yes, I suppose that is well-established. Surprisingly, he actually has the grace to blush a little bit. "I mean . . . I knew I liked guys before then, but . . . wow." His expression is downright hungry, now. "I'd never seen a guy like Vegeta before. Still haven't." Yes, everyone knows that my dad is the sex god of the universe. There's just no getting around that. Nobody looks that good.

"If you knew you liked guys, then why the hell did you marry Chichi? I mean . . . I know she tricked you into it and all, but . . ."

"It wasn't that simple, Trunks. I like girls too, " he explains, smiling at me again, seeming to enjoy my confusion. Most people like one or the other, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Goku is one that likes both. He likes everything, except for needles. And killing. "And besides, I hadn't met your dad then, didn't know there was anyone in the universe like him . . . and all I really knew is that I wanted to be with someone strong. And Chichi . . . she was the strongest girl I had ever met. I hadn't met any guys that _really_ turned me on, and the only girl I had ever thought about . . ." He seems to reconsider what he was going to say, but it's too late.

"My mom, huh?" He nods, still blushing, looking at his feet. "And she was with Yamcha."

"Yeah."

Unbelievable. It's times like this when I miss Goten the most . . . when I have something that I've just _got_ to tell someone, something only he would truly appreciate. There are a lot of little things like that, but I think this one tops the list. Who knew, that three quarters of our parentage was actually a weird love triangle that had been going on since before we were born? But I shove away thoughts of Goten, returning to happier thoughts. Or at least, someone else's misery. Besides, I still don't have the whole story.

"So? What happened?" I ask, and for a moment, he looks confused, so I remind him. "The kiss?"

"Oh, yeah . . . the kiss." His small smile is back again, but this time, it's for himself. Or maybe for my dad. "I found him, after I talked to Chichi. He was at home, but he let me take him away . . . to the place we started using as our training field later. It was the place where we fought, when we supplied the energy to resurrect Buu."

It's easy to forget about that, sometimes, that Buu would never have been resurrected, if not for dad's little stunt. For that matter, it wouldn't have happened if Goku had been willing to kill my dad quickly. The more I learn about life, the more I understand that sexual repression is probably the cause of the vast majority of the world's crimes, and probably a surprising number of the good deeds, as well. It's all about the sex, in the end.

"Anyway," Goku continues, "I took him to that field. And as soon as we got there, I just couldn't wait any longer. I'd been waiting for over ten years, by then. So I kissed him." Goku's eyes are closed, and I can tell he's reliving the memory. I can feel his aura spiking with need, a need that he has lived with for a long time.

"It was . . . like a religious experience," he whispers, making the hairs on my neck stand up, in response to his excitement. "It was perfect, Trunks. He didn't fight me. He just let me kiss him . . . relaxed when I put my arms around him . . . accepted it . . . _loved_ it." He trembles for an instant, as if a shiver had run up his spine. "I know he did. He . . . told me, without words, how much he loved me." I can already see the pain creeping into Goku's features, and for a moment, I feel guilty for inviting him to relive the experience, but at the same time, I'm wishing he wasn't glossing over the details so much. "And when I tried to go further . . . he stopped me.

"He told me . . . he told me that there was nothing more in the world that he wanted, than to have a Saiyan mate. Someone _worthy_ of a prince. But . . . but he said he had . . . _responsibilities_." Goku's eyes meet mine, and briefly – so briefly, I am not sure I didn't imagine it – I see accusation in his eyes, quickly overcome by the pain that had been there before.

"That's fucking _bullshit_, Goku, and you _know_ it's bullshit." I have not put a great deal of thought into this situation before now, but it's simply not required. I know my dad. "I mean . . . you _fused_ with him. How could he think he could lie about something like that?"

"Not that simple, Trunks," Goku says, shaking his head. That's the second time today he's accused me of being simple-minded. Goku. My dad's favorite idiot. "Our fusion was supposed to be permanent." He pauses, correcting himself. "Is permanent."

"That doesn't make any sense, Goku . . ."

"I know it doesn't," he cuts in, just a little irritably. "I'm trying to explain." He seems to be having difficulty with that. Maybe he doesn't really understand it. "Your dad . . . he did something, when we fused. I'm not sure what, or how, but he somehow . . . protected himself from the fusion." Goku looks up at me, expression stern, making sure I'm paying attention, before going on. "Whatever he did, it was enough to make us split apart again, and I think he prevented me from remembering too much about him. He probably tried to stop me from remembering anything at all, and didn't quite work out like he wanted. But even though I remember his fantasies, I don't really know for sure what his motives were, from the fusion."

"But still, Goku . . . you know his motives as well as I do, whether or not they were _confirmed_ for you, and you know it's bullshit!" I realize that a lot of my anger has to do with the fact that my dad used me as an excuse . . . and the fact that he had to use a _human_ cultural more to make it fly just makes the whole thing entirely ridiculous. "You know he doesn't give a shit about what humans think, Goku! He only gives a shit about Saiyans, and that means you."

"I don't know, Trunks." He looks thoughtful. "I think he does care a lot about you and Bulma," he says, smiling at me again. "Don't get me wrong. I agree with you." He seems resigned to that, more than anything. "I know what his main problem is. But I can't use that argument."

"Why the hell not?" I ask, truly mystified. I can understand that most people are intimidated by my dad, but Goku is one of only two people in the universe that doesn't have to be. And it's not as if he doesn't take advantage of that often enough.

"Because I respect your father enough not to shame him by talking about it," he replies, his lips twisting with the irony. "And it's his way of rubbing it in, that I abandoned my family for seven years to get _stronger_ in Otherworld, while he did what no one _ever_ expected him to do, and married your mother."

"Oh, come on, Goku!" Is he really that dense? "The only reason he even _survived_ to do all that was because of you and Gohan! And I may not be able to tell you exactly what his motives were for marrying mom, but I can guarantee you that his root motive had something to do with you, and that his next motive was sex. If those motives are even separable."

"I know all that, Trunks," he said sadly. "But none of that changes the fact that he raised you, while I left my sons alone with their mother for all those years."

"Look, Goku," I say, deciding to be brave again, to make sure I have _his_ attention. He's a bit slouched on the rock, so I put my hands on his shoulders, causing him to sit up straight, his expression bemused, and I proceed make myself comfortable in his lap, straddling him like before, noting absently that it's a very comfortable place to be. I have his eyes now. Good.

"First of all," I begin, putting up one finger, doing my best to lecture him like a child, since he's acting like one, "Goten _worships_ you. I know. I have fused with him often enough to know that you are his personal god. Also." Another finger. "I haven't fused with Gohan, but I do know that he was solely responsible for indoctrinating his little brother in the faith of dad-worship."

Goku seems slightly relieved of his angst at this revelation, so I continue in the same vein, encouraged, putting up another finger. "Third. We all know you had a good reason for staying in Otherworld, even though it turned out to be idiotic later on." I know all the arguments by heart, and they're good ones, which is not surprising since they come from Gohan. "But in any case, Dende says that it's typically unethical to use the Namek dragon balls to make wishes for Earth people unless one of the wishes will somehow affect their planet, and even though the Namek race also engages in shameless Goku-worship, it would have been unethical of _you_ to burden them with the decision by asking them after Gohan had already taken care of Cell." Did he just roll his eyes at me?

"Trunks . . ." he began, but no. I'm on a roll.

"Shut up Goku!" His upper body recoils back a couple of inches, and I follow, inching closer on his lap, and his expression takes on a hunted look. "I'm not done yet!" I put up a fourth finger.

"Finally," I say, making sure to stare him down with every bit of pent-up childhood frustration I can muster, "do you have any fucking _idea_ how hard my mom tried to get dad to spend time with me during those seven years you were gone? Fuck, Goku . . . after! All my life, my dad has spent holed up in that fucking training room. Trying to get _stronger_. When I was younger, he acted like didn't give a shit about me, so long as I was strong enough to kick Goten's ass! At least your sons had the comfort of knowing that you were gone for a noble fucking purpose, but my dad was right fucking there, Goku!" This is really strange for me, but also oddly satisfying. I love my dad, and even like him most of the time, and I don't spend a lot of energy worrying about any of this crap. But it's true, and Goku needs to hear it. Maybe I needed to vent about it and just didn't realize it.

But now that I have said my piece, I find myself suddenly aware of the body between my legs. My face feels like it's on fire as I stand up abruptly, while trying to make it seem like I just decided to do that because I wanted to stare down my nose at him. I tower over him, arms crossed at my chest again, in my best imitation of dad. _Was that_ . . .

_No. _Couldn't have been. I am not that good. Just fucking desperate. A stupid side effect of having lost the only person in the world for me. _Is he blushing, too?_

_No. _Back to the situation at hand.

"Don't you have anything to say, Goku?" I ask, doing my best to glare. Trying very hard to focus on his eyes.

He smiles, a grateful smile, I think. _For letting him off the hook?_

_No._

"Yeah," he says, finally getting up from his rock. _Eyes, Trunks_ . . . And they are such nice eyes . . . beacons of light and goodness and truth. "Thank you, Trunks." And sincerity.

Well.

That's done then.

He stretches, arms behind his head, bending first to one side, then the other. "Are you ready to train?"

I look up at the sun, and see that it's nearly reached its peak. "Yeah. I guess we blew most of the day already, huh?" I start my own exercises, stretching my legs, where I always get the most tension.

"No, not at all," he says, squatting to stretch his legs beside me. "You and Goten have never managed to reach the second level, unfused. That's what I meant, earlier, when I said we need to start treating you kids like adults." Oh yeah. I knew that was where he was going, before. But my earlier mistrust of him seems to have evaporated completely, and so I forgot about the emotional manipulation being intentional.

"That's why I wanted you to let out your emotions," he goes on, standing to stretch his torso again. "I mean, I care about you too, Trunks, and I know you needed someone to talk to. But we can use those emotions in your training, to help you reach the next level."

And of course, he would be honest about it. What did I expect? I find it hard to comprehend the lens through which I had interpreted him before.

I follow his lead, standing to stretch my arms and back. "How am I supposed to use _those_ emotions, though? I mean . . . I understand how it works, when your life is on the line, or if someone you love is killed by the enemy, and you transform to defeat it . . ."

"Use your anger," he says, relaxing his arms by his sides, letting me know that he's ready whenever I am. "Whether it's anger at Goten or just the situation itself. Anger at your dad. Anger at me." He steps closer, and I get the impression he's going to let me in on a secret.

"It doesn't have to make _sense_, Trunks," he says. "I think that was the problem Gohan had, at first," he adds thoughtfully. "He couldn't use his anger at Cell because Cell hadn't killed anyone he loved. Yet. But I don't think it's important that the anger actually be relevant to the fight, for you to use it. It just helps to break down barriers."

I guess that does make sense. "Okay, I think I get it."

I back a couple of feet away from him, settling into a relaxed stance, and he does the same. I know he doesn't have any weaknesses, but it's instinct to search for them, to search for the moment to move. The target dictates the motion . . .

His first twitch lets me know the decision is out of my hands.

_Oh, shit_ . . .

_**SMACK**_

The immense pain in my jaw is quite secondary to the unsettling sensation of being pitched backward, much faster than I can fly.

It occurs to me that I am probably going to hit something, and that I probably won't come out all that well if I don't transform.

Right now.

And just as I manage, the impact makes the world disappear in a haze of white . . .

*~*~*~*~*

As I come to, somewhere under a fucking mountain's worth of rubble, I realize I can't have been out of it that long, because I didn't lose my transformation, and I can feel, just a little distantly, that Goku has already transformed to match me.

He doesn't appear to be coming for me. But then, why would he, when he can be right here in one second, just with a thought?

I managed to avoid broken bones and possibly even death by transforming in the last instant, but I am bruised from head to toe, bleeding in several places. And I can't see anything but rock. I do my Saiyan best, screaming out my rage, blasting everything in my immediate vicinity, propelling myself toward my foe, who is doing a pretty fucking good job of making me angry.

I don't think I've flown a hundred feet when I freeze, hovering in place . . .

***

. . . letting the water wash away the dust and the blood.

The pressure of the water on my wounds is . . . stimulating.

But I don't take the time to enjoy it.

I turn around the way I came, coming out behind the waterfall, into a large open space. Not our cave. That was a couple hundred feet higher up the fall.

_Did he know?_

I can see the water churning on the rocks beneath me, but my eyes are drawn upward, where the water falls from a jutting overhang, the underside near a thousand feet above the surface of the lake.

Below, where the water once fell along the cliffside, it now falls freely, heedless of the geological transformation, the blast having scoured as far in as it did high.

Of the cave, no evidence remains.

I barely feel the water as I fly through it again, and I'm not surprised when Goku appears in front of me, causing my earlier anger to suddenly return in full force.

"What the _fuck_, Goku? Whatever happened to a fucking warm-up?"

"Silly Trunks," he says, smirking at me, distinctly amused. "Warm-ups are for kids."

"Whatever, Goku," I grumble, rolling my eyes irritably, turning to look at the damage from this side of the waterfall. Fortunately, it looks as though the mountain will hold up after all – it is a big fucking mountain, after all, and I only took out a relatively small chunk of it – and the waterfall itself remains essentially unchanged, sparkling like always in the midday sun.

"That was close." I turn around to face him, speaking quietly, voice cold, for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. "Very close." My eyes drift to the waterfall, then back again, locking gazes with Goku. "You almost destroyed something beautiful."

And as his amusement fades to sympathy, I know the answer to the unresolved question.

"Aw, come on, Trunks," he says, smiling a little too innocently for comfort, floating toward me, reaching out a hand to push back my disheveled hair from my face. He leans in close, and whispers in my ear. "I knew you would be okay . . ."

_**CRAACK**_

_Fuck! _I didn't even see that one coming!

It takes considerably fewer seconds for me to collide with the scenery than before . . . apparently another mountain, at what might as well be point-blank range, and I am buried deep in the rock once again. I don't pass out this time, probably because I had already transformed, but I find myself wishing I could, as I'm quite acutely aware of the pain of several bones breaking, including, a leg, and arm, and a few ribs, on top of the jaw that Goku actually managed to shatter. I think I am probably bleeding internally . . .

And just like that, this fight is fucking over.

_Pathetic . . ._

This time, I take a little more care for the local topography, just sparing a little energy to collapse the pile of rubble on top of me so that I can breathe, wincing with the pain when the rock beneath me trembles.

After the trauma of the last twenty seconds or so subsides, I find there is only room in my mind for one thought.

_What the fuck kind of game is he playing now?_

And of course, just as if I had summoned him, he appears, hovering over me. Resplendent and untouched, while my ass is molded to a rock. I can't move, but by the fucking _kai_, I can talk . . .

"What the fuck are you _about_, Goku? What is the motherfucking _point_, if you're just going to put me down with two fucking blows? Don't you think I fucking know you are a billion fucking times stronger than me?" I'm starting to burble, so I spit out a mouthful of blood, giving him my best sneer, the one I save for truly special occasions. "What are you going to fucking do with my anger _now_, huh?"

And why the fuck does he have _that_ fucking look on his face? Utterly unreadable . . . except for . . . cunning? Eagerness? Do I just imagine these things?

He floats over the pile of debris, settling down on my rock, kneeling beside me, eyes all of a sudden holding mine captive. I can't look away . . . but I can feel his fingertips, touching my broken ribs, making me shudder with the pain. Sliding downward. Pausing on my stomach.

And then I realize what he has apparently already noticed, by his little smile, radiating superiority.

I'm as fucking hard as the rock my ass is molded to . . .

Yes, there is something feral in his eyes, now. I still can't look away – my anger still compels me – but he relieves me of that burden, breaking eye contact to lean in close to my ear again, and his voice is pitched so low, I can _feel_ his words more clearly than I hear them.

"What do you want me to do with it, Trunks?" In a flash, his hand dips inside my pants . . .

[chapter cut off here, to meet ff dot net standards. Find the rest at aff or mediaminer!]


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